The new me

[Tim Armes]

Hi,

I've spent a good few evening redesigning my site and I'm hoping that you can give me some feedback.

I felt that the old design wasn't commercially oriented enough in that it wouldn't attract the clientel that I'm looking for. This design is cleaner and more modern. Hopefully it's easy to navigate. I hope that it isn't too simplistic.

I realise that the commercial portfolio is lacking, I've got a number of things that will be put up there in the coming weeks. One of the motivations for this new design is that it was time consuming to put up new galleries - now I simply export a gallery from LR and it appears automagically.

Do you feel that the design is strong enough?
Does it inspire confidence?
Is there anything lacking?
Is the text OK or is it too forthright?

Thanks for your input.

Tim

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

Hi Tim,

I had a quick look, I like the simplicity in deed. Colors, Fonts etc is a all matter of personal preference.

What I wonder about is that you offer high quality prints, but do not elaborate on this other than offering your contact details. Something I see quite often, and I think this does not inspire confidence. I would elaborate on your printer equipment and talk more about your process as well as garantees, prices, size options, matted, framed etc

Just my euro 0,02... which is more than $ 0,02 as a famous OPF member recently stated rightly so. LOL

 

[Tim Armes]

What I wonder about is that you offer high quality prints, but do not elaborate on this other than offering your contact details. Something I see quite often, and I think this does not inspire confidence. I would elaborate on your printer equipment and talk more about your process as well as garantees, prices, size options, matted, framed etc

Thanks Georg, that just the kind of feedback I need.

You're right of course, I don't think I'd contact someone without having an idea of the price. I'll get that sorted.

I wonder how useful it is to mention the printer equipment - how many print buyers will care?

Tim

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

I would think, that depends Tim. If you are in the high price segment, I guess they do care a lot about secondary informations on the service and product on offer. If it is in the low price segment may be not so much, but casic infos such as sizes, finish of the product, delivery, costs, garantees, that kinda stuff should be mentioned, besides your terms and conditions.

See, my line of thinking is this, your presentation is crucial. If you are "sloppy" with the presentation of your product, it will inevitably reflect on the product!

 

[Ken Tanaka]

Hi Tim,

In summary, nicely done! I liked what I saw during my quick walk-thru. The design is graphically crisp, visually clean and comes down swiftly. Your Flash-based portfolio galleries display well.

You also present your narratives in the first-person voice! Third-person narratives on photographers' and artists' sites are personal peeve of mine. The self-important pretense of that style immediately makes me smirk. So good for you for being so straight-forward with your visitors!

My only criticism: I wonder, however, about that embedded menu facility at the top-level. I am not a fan of mouse-over menus. If you were pressed for vertical space I would understand. But you have oodles of white space. Why not just spread the whole menu out? I think it will be visually richer and much more compelling.

You might also consider putting a little eye candy on the "Me to You" page. It's lots of small text with no visual relief.

I cannot offer an opinion on your new site's congruency with your business strategy or goals.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi,

I felt that the old design wasn't commercially oriented enough in that it wouldn't attract the clientel that I'm looking for. This design is cleaner and more modern. Hopefully it's easy to navigate. I hope that it isn't too simplistic.

Many sites suffer form not living up to the expectations from the look, feel and presentation. Your work however, is entirely the opposite. It's not often we see collections of pictures that are each coherent, impressive and give an immediate sense of meeting or visiting a very special corner of the world that one is glad one found.

This website would be a total failure for ordinary photography. The interface with the underlined text does not look clean and alert but studious stuttering. There is no sweep to it.

The strength of your site has to be the pictures and your photographic style which is self evident. The bicycle series alone, shows your total skill.

Look at this as an example here. There is a slight loading delay but then everything works beautifully and one can explore. One feels one had control. The images appear instantly.

You should have thumbs of your stock images in the same way too as well as the indexing search you already have.

This is one area where I'd spend money. Otherwise the example I gave, will be great for your work. One needs a cart and an explanation of your print quality etc.

I hope my words are not too harsh.


Do you feel that the design is strong enough?: No
Does it inspire confidence?: your work inspires confidence but the design does not show case it to full advantage
Is there anything lacking?: The gallery is not attractive. I dislike the strip at the top. It's IMHO not good enough for your work.

Is the text OK or is it too forthright? Too soft.

I think you need to have someone else look at you site because you are too close. Your esthetic sense for your photography is outstanding and so "there"! The website does not reach 1/10 of that. No one who was serious about hiring you for a job and knew about photography would ever be put off by the interface, but someone might possibly think that they could take advantage of you.

Asher

 

[Andrew Stannard]

Hi Tim,

Have had a quick look through and all the whole I think the site is good. It's certainly easy to navigate - something that infuriates me with some websites.

Your images speak for themselves, and have great cohesion. I'm not much of a fan of flash galleries, but the one you are using is a clean design. I missed the option to see the thumbnails at first. I'd prefer to have them on by default, but that's just personal preference. In terms of your direct questions....

Is the design strong enough? It's perhaps a bit too clean for my taste. It doesn't detract from the images, which is great, but at the same time I don't think it really adds to them either.

Does it inspire confidence? Yes, but I feel you need a bit more information (see below)

Is there anything lacking? Like others, I think you need some information about purchasing, rates etc. Basically a bit more business text to go with everything else. My own site suffers from the same thing, and it is something I hope to address over the summer.

Is the text OK or is it too forthright? I think the text is great. Glad to see it's in the 1st person.


Hope this helps,

 

[Tim Armes]

Thank you all for you responses, you've been very helpful.

I would think, that depends Tim. If you are in the high price segment, I guess they do care a lot about secondary informations on the service and product on offer.

See, my line of thinking is this, your presentation is crucial. If you are "sloppy" with the presentation of your product, it will inevitably reflect on the product!

Thanks Georg. I think you're absolutely right, and I've now put up a page detailing this information. Sale of prints is important to me but is isn't my primary goal, so I guess I hadn't give this aspect of the site enough attention, and that was an error.

Hi Tim,
In summary, nicely done! I liked what I saw during my quick walk-thru. The design is graphically crisp, visually clean and comes down swiftly. Your Flash-based portfolio galleries display well.

Actually, it's not flash. I don't like flash. It's just javascript.

My only criticism: I wonder, however, about that embedded menu facility at the top-level. I am not a fan of mouse-over menus. If you were pressed for vertical space I would understand. But you have oodles of white space. Why not just spread the whole menu out? I think it will be visually richer and much more compelling.

The gallery index may see another overhaul at some point. I hoped that the interactive nature would compel visitors to roll over and take note of each gallery on offer. Perhaps I'm wrong.

You might also consider putting a little eye candy on the "Me to You" page. It's lots of small text with no visual relief.

I know what you mean but I'm not sure what to put. I'll have to get some photos of me taking photos!

I cannot offer an opinion on your new site's congruency with your business strategy or goals.

I can. It's not there yet because the commercial gallery isn't finished. Without the right photos to sell my intended services the site isn't yet serving it's purpose. This'll change soon, but for now I wanted to concentrate on the design and get that out the way.

The interface with the underlined text does not look clean and alert but studious stuttering. There is no sweep to it.

I tested your comment by removing the underlines and changing the colour of the links. You were right, that looks better, so I've made the change permanent. Thanks.

Look at this as an example here. There is a slight loading delay but then everything works beautifully and one can explore. One feels one had control. The images appear instantly.

It's all subjective, but I'm not keen. Lots of waiting about.

Is there anything lacking?: The gallery is not attractive. I dislike the strip at the top. It's IMHO not good enough for your work.

OK. Which part don't you like, the index page or the galleries once they're opened? What aspects are cause for concern?

Your images speak for themselves, and have great cohesion. I'm not much of a fan of flash galleries, but the one you are using is a clean design. I missed the option to see the thumbnails at first. I'd prefer to have them on by default, but that's just personal preference.

It's actually "John's smooth gallery" and it's written in JS. There isn't currently an option to have the thumbnails on by default, but I my have a look at the source, or I may make the option clearer.

Is the design strong enough? It's perhaps a bit too clean for my taste. It doesn't detract from the images, which is great, but at the same time I don't think it really adds to them either.

I understand what you're saying. I tried adding more fluff (logos and what not) but it because too complicated. I'm up for suggestions

Thanks all, much appreciated. The changes I've made at your suggestion make a difference I feel.

Tim

P.S. You may need to do a force refresh to get the site working again now.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Tim,

Yes, it is already better.

You are great in handling all this at once! The gallery strip is ugly as it is currently placed. The arrows in the picture are not professional looking. The transparency to the index page does not work to carry through the color scheme and feel of the index page.

Reaching the gallery, one does not have the rapid freedom to explore as by mousing over a micro thumb, as in the example I showed. How you program it, is your choice, but the immediate loading of any image without having to go back to a menu page allows the least barrier to exploring your work.

The index page is attractive but a totally different esthetic feel to that of the gallery pages. They should appear united. If there was green text with the same font, that might work. There is no click though to but the print or license the picture. At least I missed it.

What you have written about yourself is wonderful and very helpful in understanding a little more about you and your work. However, "My Photography" does not really give any hints as to the talent and approach you have which is so unique. Your statement should relate to your best work and your mode of expression. Yes you can do anything but perhaps you can answer this, "In what way does a XXX XXXXXX's photograph differ from all other photographs?" Now that may not be yet answerable by most of us. However, on the track to answering that, it would be nice to have a greater introduction to your artistic capabilities. Imagine you are a curator of a gallery and you wanted to introduce people to an exhibit of this body of work. What could be said that distinguishes your approach, priorities and values? Yes, you do stock. But you are very artistic and that sense is not described at all. If you do, then people will buy that style you are marketing since you already have great examples.

Of course you want to accomodate. But people would value a Tim Armes "look" or essence if you can somehow frame it. If not make it appear that it exists. For sure, your work deserves to be described adequately.

Asher

 

[Tim Armes]

The index page is attractive but a totally different esthetic feel to that of the gallery pages. They should appear united. If there was green text with the same font, that might work.

...

The gallery is not attractive. I dislike the strip at the top. It's IMHO not good enough for your work.

Hi Asher. I've taken to heart what you've said here. Stepping back, I agree that the gallery presentation didn't marry with the rest of the site.

I therefore set out to find a better way of presenting the sub galleries. I'm pleased with the result, it's definitely in keeping with my site yet it remains a highly automated solution (I can export my galleries directly from Lightroom). In this new design the image is bought to the forefront.

Unfortunately the "Smooth Gallery" wasn't configurable enough for my needs, and I've had to (reluctantly) turn to a flash solution. I'm sure that I could code the new presentation in Javascript, but I don't have the time. Maybe later.

There's still a slight problem in that the image gets chopped off if the main window is too small. I'll look at that.

I'd like to know what you think now.

Tim

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Tim,

This is a major improvement and thrilling to see happen in real time! I like your new description of your photography and the look of the galleries. It's much celaner and does feel like the galleries "belong".

A few niggles:

The size and color of the text in the drop down pictures.

Maybe, go for it and have text appear below the commercial section on the right, or move everything to the left and have the text appear there.

The color of the text should be grey with a green of your front page and larger.

In the gallery you might look at the circle that tells the viewer that the image is loading. Can that be moved to the lower right near the arrow and away from the picture? Also the slide show starts without any click. Is it supposed to?

Could you push the slides to load in the background all the time so the wait is less for loading.

These are minor points only.

Next stage is

1. Making sure thoughts are in the right order and as tight as possible in the text. You need to look at that in a month or you won't see anything that needs touching!

2. Adding purchase and/license large grey dot for buying prints/license to use image.

Congrats,

Asher

 

[Andrew Stannard]

Excellent work Tim - lots of improvements in a very short timeframe!

I prefer the style of the new galleries to the old, and like your new drop down menus. The extra text under the 'Me to You' sections adds that extra dimension that makes it clear that you are open for business!

One thing.... There is a typo on your section on Papers and Ink, last paragraph. You've missed the 'l' off 'beautiful'.

Great work,

 

[Tim Armes]

Hi Tim,
The size and color of the text in the drop down pictures.

Maybe, go for it and have text appear below the commercial section on the right, or move everything to the left and have the text appear there.

It's a good idea, but the problem is that it doesn't scale to smaller screen sizes. At the moment you can make the window narrower and it all shuffles about - I'm not sure where the text would go in this case.

I'll see if I can increase the legibility in another way.

Hi Tim,
2. Adding purchase and/license large grey dot for buying prints/license to use image.
Asher

Does anyone else here sell all their stock from their own site? I've currently just put a fex examples up and then given links to the sites I where I upload stock, but I'm not currently considering putting all my images on my site and selling licences from there.

It seems to me that those looking for stock would go to a specialist site, not to some obscure photographer.

Also, since my business plan is based more on being hired than it is on selling stock, I'm concerned that it'll detract from the essential.

It's a hard call.

I do however agree that this would be useful for buying prints.

Excellent work Tim - lots of improvements in a very short timeframe!

I prefer the style of the new galleries to the old, and like your new drop down menus. The extra text under the 'Me to You' sections adds that extra dimension that makes it clear that you are open for business!

One thing.... There is a typo on your section on Papers and Ink, last paragraph. You've missed the 'l' off 'beautiful'.

Great work,

Thanks for your comments, and for the typo!

In fact, I'd like to thank everyone. I've had some great comments and critiques and I feel that you've really helped me get my site more streamlined and targetted. I don't know of any other forum where one could expect such generous help.

Tim

 

[Tim Armes]

Is the design strong enough? It's perhaps a bit too clean for my taste.

Hi all,

Finally I agreed with this comment. The lack of colour left the site lacking in some way.

I've now kept up basic presentation but I completely changed the colour scheme and it seems to have really polished it off. I'd be interested in hearing if it's for the better.

Tim